. >> that was major garrett, cbs news. the meeting is set for friday, as you heard, hours before the spending cuts are set to kick in. i hope we're all clear on that. by the way, it is the usual suspects, boehner, pelosi, reed and mcconnell, all meeting with the president. gloria borger with us now talking yesterday about needing a shovel before the storm here, joining me now, our chief little analyst. gloria, it is kind of hard to avoid the suspicion that this meeting serves a bit of a political purpose. >> shocked. >> shocked face. am i being a little cynical here? >> you're not. look, you're not at all. they could meet today. they could meet tomorrow. they could have met last week. i mean, look, they all know that this is coming. this is not a surprise. and i think it is sort of for public show and unless they're going to come up with some miraculous short-term deal and, okay, maybe they can, there is this much of a chance of it, but maybe they can come up with a deal to kick the can down the road, and deal with all of